The Top 15 Films By Female Horror Directors, Ranked
Leigh Janik didn't direct one of the 15 best horror films made by women — she directed three of them.
Every entry in this trilogy has iconic kills, iconic characters, and — most importantly — each film traffics in an engaging, resonant, and possibly essential narrative that favors the trilogy form above all else. One could argue "Fear Street 1666" is a weaker standalone movie than its predecessors, and that'd be fair. But to this writer's eyes, it's a pristine conclusion to the "Fear Street" saga, sacrificing its own narrative to be an indelible conclusion to the whole. Making an artistic decision like that takes guts.
But it's not surprising Janik does, given that the idea of sacrifice runs deep in "Fear Street." All three films examine what people are forced to give up by society and what they'll abandon willingly. Some abscond their normal lives for fear-based logic (like Gillian Jacobs' Ziggy Berman). Others are forced to bury love or their expressions of affection. If there's a lesson to be learned amongst the "Fear Street" trilogy's phantasmagoric blend of slasher, teen drama, and supernatural legend, it's that the truth will reveal itself, even if it takes centuries. For the "Fear Street" films themselves? It takes six hours that pass like 90 minutes.
Watch them all.
